Castle Series Finale Review: Did the Ending Wrap-up the Greatest Love Story on TV?

After 8 seasons, Castle‘s final chapter played out Monday night as the series finale wrapped up loose ends and gave the fans what they wanted, a happy ending. Was it worth it?

It’s the inevitable truth that everything must end. All good things come to a close. Sometimes the end is the actual physical end, but the moment that a special thing lost its sparkle. Castle is one of those where the sparkle started to fade, for some it went out completely, others held onto hope that it was simmering and will prevail. Did it? That’s subjective. Yes, they did get a happy ending but did it make up for the rest of this season?

I am still on the fence. This show was special. This show was created and brought hundreds of people together from all walks of life, that power in itself isn’t something that comes easily. It takes something special to get people hooked and Castle had that. That magical ingredient was Caskett. The chemistry between these characters was massive and they stole the hearts of everyone that watched.

Not only that, but this show retained their core cast until the end. Aside from a couple small changes, Nathan, Stana, Seamus, Jon, Tamala, Susan and Molly have been there from the start. To have that many people stick around for 170+ episodes is not something you see everyday. The fact that they kept this together, kept the crew that worked is extraordinary. This show was one of the greats and they didn’t go out with as big of a bang as they could have.

The finale tied up loose strings around LokSat, finally revealing who the mastermind behind this whole charade was. A case that probably didn’t need to happen at all. This is the case that left Caskett separated for a majority of the season. It opened up something that had the perfect closure and it really didn’t do anything to help the story line.

The show-runners had stated they had two endings ready if the show were to receive a cancellation. A cancellation that was most likely brought on after an uproar of fan disapproval of the dismissal of Stana Katic and Tamala Jones. The thought of this show going on without the core of it, the love story between Castle and Beckett, was preposterous. ABC saw the out pour of emotions of a fandom trying to save their show by giving it the end it deserves. The endings included a cliff hanger which judging off the finale would have been the two on the floor dying, ultimately coming through with Beckett did not survive seeing as Stana wasn’t coming back. But they had an alternate ending planned. The one we saw. The 7 year jump. Which I had joked about earlier in the day saying that I hope there’s a jump and we see babies. Interestingly enough that’s exactly what they did. A lot of fans had theories about the end that dealt with time jumps and babies and frankly, they could have done more with that.

There was potential to make that a bigger ending, one that wasn’t so rushed but for better or for worse, Caskett is alive and well and have 3 kids just like the time traveler from season 6 predicted. (That’s still the one of the creepiest things this show has done). Seeing Beckett as a mom was beautiful. Ending on Always was great. The road to get there not so much but for what it’s worth, a happy ending is exactly what they should have done.

Creator Andrew Marlowe was active on Twitter as the finale of his show played out. Was this the MilMar ending everyone had hoped for? Probably not, but both Andrew and Terri were there to show their support to the people that made this show what it was. Thanks for the memories Castle and here’s to MilMar’s book series Marlowe teased after being asked to write the fans a proper ending or continuation. I know I’ll be in line for that series.

The leaves fall, you close the book, you say goodbye. The series might be over, for some long before the series finale, but the memories will last a lifetime. Always.

About the author

Anam is a self proclaimed TV nerd who loves all things TV. She's a DC local and advocates for children in need whenever she can. Her favorite way to unwind after a day of activism is with an episode or two of one of her many favorite shows and a live tweet session.

The treatment that Castle received by ABC is atrocious. Disrespectful and betrayed. Fans, cast and crew who all lost jobs and Stana Katic and Tamala Jones. Treated like dirt after 8 seasons. S7-8 were boring as hell and the Showrunners gave us nothing we wanted to see. I am mad at this ending because it took us getting the show killed to keep our Co-lead favorite actress from being killed. That is wrong and everyone deserved better. Anam, thanks for your columns. Enjoyed them.

Anam Ahmad

Thank you for reading along! Completely agree with what you said, these last couple years have been nothing like they should have been. It’s hard to fathom that had the fans not fought so hard to have the show canceled they were going to kill off Beckett and attempt to continue. The fact that they even thought it was a good idea is hard to stomach.

albert marks

Having gone from a mega fan to a non fan (post S6E23) all I have to say is who cares. For most fans I know the show ended 2 years ago. Only thing I will always want to know is who made the decision to take one of the best written shows ever on TV and turn it into the schlok we’ve been fed recently.

Shana Lieberman

I, too, would like to know what caused that decision. Sadly, unless there’s one of those Lifetime “unauthorized” documentaries about the rise and fall of Castle, we’ll probably never have any answers about anything.

Anam Ahmad

I would love to know the answer to that too. I have my theories but it would be nice to know wtf happened? We probably won’t be getting any answers anytime soon :/

Lilly

This whole season was pretty bad. And the behind-the-scenes drama that brought everything to a close this year was distracting. (I’d rather be blissfully unaware of the prima-donna attitudes of the actors I enjoy!) All in all, they wrapped most everything in a bow, but they screwed the end up with that stupid scene with the shooting in the apartment. Wasn’t enough time to explain how/why he came back, so why not remove it entirely? They could have fleshed out what happened to all the other characters in that 60 seconds…. Just seemed rushed and lazy. But I’ll enjoy re-watching the earlier seasons over and over!

Shana Lieberman

“Rushed and lazy.” Nailed it.

Anam Ahmad

Agreed. They should have left the shooting out and panned out to show what everyone else was doing 7 years later or made the Caskett family scene longer. The shooting was pointless.